Essay - Art History Sacred Spaces the Architecture of the Maya Deep...

Art History

Sacred Spaces

The Architecture of the Maya

***** in the tangled rainforests of Guatemala and ***** Yucatan, the Maya made some of ***** greatest contributions to world architecture. Their s*****ne cities complete with temples, palaces, tombs, and ball courts are fitting monuments to the complex, and highly sophisticated civilization that existed in *****se regions many centuries before the arrival ***** ***** Spanish. Mayan priest-astronomers made elaborate calculations to catalog the passage of time. Great warrior kings immortalized *****mselves and their deeds on stelae, recording for future generati*****s the contributions *****y had made toward maintaining the cosmic order. The Maya were the only Pre-Columbian people to ever have invented a complete system of writing. *****ir glyphs, only recently translated, reveal a ***** concerned *****bove all with the maintenance ***** a grand ***** order. It was an ***** that was based upon cycles of time - the reason for the high elaboration ***** ***** Mayan calendar ***** and *****ything in Mayan society, from the bloody sacrifices performed by *****ir k*****gs, to the great cities deep in ***** jungle, served as a physical representation of this order.

As in many cultures around the world, the site chosen for ***** construction of a sacred building was often as important ***** the building itself. In Israel, the Dome of ***** Rock is built on the Temple Mount, ***** in Europe, many churches are to be found ***** locales that have strong pagan associations. Of course, in these cases, the original sacral import of the site has been forgotten, and the *****, while retaining its original importance as a focus of ritual, is now *****sociated with beliefs and practices different from those origin*****y connected to the particular spot. The Maya however, in ***** long ***** of their existence as an *****dependent people, maintained their basic world-view. The m*****y "lost *****" ***** first re-emerged from the rainforest at the h*****s ***** Western archeologists in ***** Nineteenth Century show a continuity of purpose ********** even ***** general style that is in many ways unique to the Mesoamerican experience. Many of the impressive ***** that we see today ***** in fact superimposed on earlier structures. The present temples literally enclose earlier structures, entirely surrounding them as does each successively larger Russian doll - break open *****e, and you find a smaller one inside. This "building ***** the past" is a feature not ***** ***** specific structures, but also of entire cities. Take for example ***** Acropolis at Copan. Here, adobe ********** survive bene*****h the later layers ***** construction. The purpose of these buildings, ***** their arrangement re***** an earlier, and technologically more primitive version of the ***** city. It is as if we ***** to ***** another and ***** Rome or London beneath the present*****day *****, the sites of the modern public building churches, schools, and so *****th - everything considered essential ***** the proper functioning of ***** ***** occupied by rudimentary versions of ***** structures currently to be found at each loc*****ion.

Such continuity at Maya